Celtic Magic (17 page)

She looked around at the Dallas skyline at
night, as always enjoying all the colors that lit up the streets.
One particular building caught her eye as they were driving; it was
nearly the tallest one she could see, coming in a close second to
the tall green Bank of America building her father always called
the Jolly Green Giant.

The one that caught her eye was lit up neon
blue and looked to be nearly covered in windows.

“That building is so pretty” she said
absentmindedly her eyes fixed on the large building. Tom looked
over at her.

“Which one?” he asked her. She pointed over
to the blue one.

“I like the color. Has it always been blue?”
she asked.

Tom started to laugh and she looked back
over at him, “What’s so funny?” she asked him.

“Those are the Azure Condos silly” He
replied back.

Abby nearly choked, “That’s the apartment
building you are staying in?” she asked.

Tom nodded, “Yes it is” he said as they
pulled up to the curb.

Abby stepped out of the car and looked up,
getting dizzy as she tried to look at the top of the building. Tom
walked around the car and put his arm around her, guiding her into
the building. Abby’s eyes nearly popped out of her head as they
walked into the large building, which was in fact surrounded in
glass. It felt like every wall was made of glass, giving it a very
open feel.

Abby waited while Tom went to speak with the
security desk, giving them Nicole’s picture and letting them know
that he would now be staying in the apartment. Once he was done, he
came over and grabbed her hand, pulling her to the elevators. As
they waited for the elevator to come she looked around again.

“So, how many floors does this building
have?” she asked him.

“Thirty-one, I think” he replied back.

“What floor is your apartment on?” she
asked.

Tom smiled, “I’m on the twentieth floor, in
a two-bedroom, and it has a great view” he said.

Abby nodded, “So you’ve been in the
apartment before?” she asked him again, feeling like she was just
full of questions.

He nodded, “Yes, I’ve stayed in it before.
Mostly when I was in college, when I would come home during the
breaks, I’d stay in this apartment. It’s always been my favorite”
he told her as the elevator doors finally opened. They got into the
elevator and waited while it climbed up toward his floor.

“So, why a two-bedroom instead of a
one-bedroom?” she asked him.

“Normally I would choose a one-bedroom, but
the view is better from the two-bedroom apartments” he answered her
as they continued to climb.

After just a few minutes they arrived and
the doors opened up and they walked out of the elevator and turned
to the right.

“I’m in apartment eight in the corner” he
told her as they walked to the door. She couldn’t help but feel a
little awed at the size and beauty of the apartment as they walked
in. It was the largest apartment she had ever seen. Actually, it
was probably bigger than her father’s house. The outside wall was
entirely made up of glass and even from across the room, she could
see a large terrace.

Tom pulled her toward it and they walked out
onto the terrace where she gasped at what she was seeing. The view
was every bit as wonderful as he had said, with downtown directly
in front of her, lit up brightly. They were so far up that it
looked smaller than she would think it could ever look, and as she
looked down saw the large blue swimming pool beneath them.

“Wow, that is a big pool” she finally
managed to get out.

Tom laughed, “Actually I was wondering if
you wanted to go swimming. You see how part of the pool is going
into the small building there?” he said pointing to a building to
their right.

Abby nodded, “Well, that is a private part
of the pool that has to be rented out, and I took the liberty of
asking the security if anyone had it tonight” he told her.

Abby lifted her eyebrows, “And?” she asked,
wanting to know the answer to that.

“Nobody else rented it out, so I gave them
money to let us in” he said.

Abby smiled, “that sounds like fun, but I
don’t have a suit” she told him. Tom gave her the smile he usually
got when he was feeling frisky.

“That’s perfect, I would rather skinny dip
anyway, and it’s completely private. The doors lock and everything”
he told her. Abby blushed, she had never done anything like that
before, but figured it was time to loosen up a little bit.

“Sure, how long does it take to get down
there?” she asked.

He titled his head to the side, “About two
seconds if you pop us down there with your scary magic” he
said.

Abby laughed and grabbed Tom’s hand,
immediately making the little lights come and take them to the pool
house.

***

Abby’s telephone woke her out of the deep
sleep she was in, and she opened her eyes looking around,
forgetting where she was for a few seconds. Then, she recognized
the large bedroom in Tom’s new apartment and remembered where she
was.

She jumped out of the bed and finally found
her phone sitting on Tom’s dresser. As she picked it up she
groaned, realizing that it was actually her alarm and not someone
calling her. She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and looked
around. She noticed for the first time that Tom was not in bed
anymore. She also noticed that she was still naked and
instinctively covered herself with her arms, and with a glance
around the room, spotted a white terry cloth robe lying on the end
of the bed.

She pulled it on, loving how warm and comfy
it was, and decided to go looking for Tom. She opened the bedroom
door, and the first thing that caught her attention was the smell
of bacon. Her stomach growled as she walked out of the bedroom
toward the smell. She smiled at the sight she saw as she approached
the kitchen.

Tom standing in front of the stove flipping
what looked like eggs in a large black iron skillet. He must have
noticed her because he looked up at her and smiled.

“Great timing, breakfast is now ready” he
said. Abby nodded and walked up to him, standing up on her tip toes
as she kissed him quickly.

“Good, because as soon as I smelled that
bacon my stomach grumbled, but my alarm woke me up, I have to work
today” she told him as she sat at the small breakfast table
situated in the kitchen. He sat a plate in front of her with the
prettiest omelet she had ever seen and a few strips of bacon on
it.

“That’s okay, I have to go in today too, my
dad wants me to take a bigger part in running the hotel, and they
have a board meeting today that I really need attend” he said as he
sat next to her.

“What about art school?” she asked him as
she dug into her omelet. He sat down next to her and started to eat
his own omelet.

“We are on break right now, but I’m thinking
of telling my dad about it. What do you think?” he asked her.

She smiled, “I think you should” she said.
“I think he will understand and support you on it.”

He nodded, “I think I’m going to tell him
today” he said.

“I think that’s great, let me know how it
goes. I have to get ready for work” she said leaning in for a
kiss.

He kissed her back, “I have to go too, love
you, see you later” he told her as he walked out the door.

Chapter
2
8

After getting dressed, she looked at her
cell phone and saw that she only had a few minutes to get to work,
so instead of having Tom drive her, she decided to just pop in.

She kissed Tom goodbye and disappeared,
landing in the back room of the store, where Jasmine was already
getting ready to open the boxes of new spell ingredients she had
received the day before.

Abby walked over to her, “Let me put my
purse up, then I’ll help you with those boxes” she told her while
leaving the back room to drop her purse under the register.

She grabbed her phone and stuck it in her
pocket as she went back into the back room, looking at the boxes
Jasmine had started opening.

“Jasmine?” she asked timidly. Jasmine looked
back at her, giving her a questioning look.

“Why don’t you just put all of this up with
magic? Wouldn’t it be easier? I mean, it’s not like customers would
see, the store isn’t even open yet?” she asked her.

Jasmine stood back up, “Normally I would say
that I don’t mind the manual labor, and after so many years of
doing it the mortal way, I guess I just got used to it. However,
I’m feeling a bit tired today, so I think I’ll let you do it for
me” she said.

Abby nodded and closed her eyes, thinking
how she wanted everything that was in the box to be opened and on
the shelf where it was supposed to go. She felt the heat in her
hands and pointed them to the boxes until the heat had completely
gone away. She opened her eyes slowly, hoping she hadn’t caught
fire to the boxes or destroyed all of Jasmine’s new things, but saw
that the boxes were all gone.

She looked back to Jasmine who shrugged her
shoulders and walked into the front room, heading for the shelf
where they should be, and Abby followed close behind her, anxious
to see if it had worked. Sure enough, as they got close to the
shelf, she saw that all of the new ingredients were stacked nicely,
right where they belonged. Abby looked around the store, but didn’t
see the boxes they came in anywhere.

“Jasmine, what happened to the boxes?” she
asked.

Jasmine closed her eyes, and then started to
laugh, “They are in the dumpsters out back, already broken down.
How did you do that so quickly?”

Abby shrugged, “I don’t know, I just thought
of the stuff in the boxes being where they were supposed to be” she
said.

Jasmine nodded, “I guess that included the
boxes themselves too. Thanks Abby, I was dreading doing that too”
Jasmine said.

Abby stood behind the register while jasmine
unlocked the door, but for once, there wasn’t a line of people
waiting outside to come in, so jasmine came and sat on one of the
stools next to her behind the counter.

“So, I know you told me that you were half
faerie and half God, but where are your parents? What happened to
them?” she asked.

Jasmine sat back against the counter, “Well,
my mother’s name is Aibell, and she was the Faerie Queen for
centuries. She was so beautiful, with golden blonde hair, which is
unusual for a faerie, most of us have either red hair, or very dark
hair” she started.

“My father’s name is Lenus and he was a
Healing God who was still very young at the time, and fell madly in
love with my mother. They had a secret romance for years before I
was eventually born” she continued.

Abby was enjoying hearing about someone
else’s life for once and didn’t want her to stop, so she tried to
encourage her to go on.

“What happened to them? Are they still
together?” she asked.

Jasmine shook her head, “No, they tried to
keep me a secret, but I was just a few months old when Elysia found
out about me. At first my mother tried to make it seem as though
she had mated with another faerie, as I had already clearly had
wings, but Elysia is very powerful, and saw through the lie. After
that Elysia had my father banned from the Other World, and my
mother was so heartbroken that she left me in the care of your
grandparents and left to come to the mortal world to live. I
haven’t seen her since” she said sadly.

Abby was confused, “If your mother is here
in this world, then why haven’t you been able to find her? Can’t
you look in a Seer’s Orb or sense her or something?” she asked.

Jasmine sighed, “No, she has masked and
hidden all of her powers. She is completely invisible to anyone
magical. Believe me I have tried to find her, many times.”

Abby frowned, she knew how hard it was to
grow up without your mother around, and to not be able to find her
when you knew she had to be close must have been frustrating.

“Where is your father, do you see him
often?” she continued to probe.

Jasmine nodded, “Yes, I see him from time to
time, not as much now that I’m older, but he went to live on Mount
Olympus. He is very good friends with Apollo and so he went to stay
with him” she told her.

Abby wanted to ask more questions but the
door chimed and as they looked up she saw a young couple walk into
the store.

***

Later that night as they were getting ready
to close the store, Abby realized that she hadn’t heard from Tom
all day. He usually would at least send her a text or something,
but her phone had stayed silent the entire day. She pulled her
phone out of her pocket and sent him a text.

‘Are you
Okay?
’ and it took only a few minutes for
her to get an answer back from him,
‘Yes,
I have just been crazy busy, but I should be done soon. I’ll come
and pick you up when you close and take you to dinner.’

The text made her feel better, so she texted
back her yes then went to help Jasmine get ready to close. Pulling
back the curtain to the back room, Abby had a thought come to
her,

“Is it possible to bring regular humans into
the Other World?” she asked wondering if it was something she would
ever be able to share with Tom.

Jasmine looked at her thoughtfully for a
second, “Well, it is possible, but I don’t know anybody that has
actually brought anybody over there. I’m not sure what would happen
to them, since our time runs differently over there and everything.
I mean, we don’t age, especially while we are over there, but I’m
not sure if humans would. I guess it would be weird if they were
there for any large amount of time and then came back over here”
she said.

Abby tilted her head, “What do you mean?”
she asked.

“Well, for instance, what if a human was to
stay in the Other World for ten Years, and aged that way, but when
they came back over here, only about ten days would have gone by.
Don’t you think people would think it was odd that they aged ten
years in only a little over a week?” she asked.